On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, let's stop to ponder their contributions to the English lexicon. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Darwin is credited with the first known English use of 144 different words, including creationist, phylogeny, archaeopteryx, alfalfa, and rodeo. And his birthday-mate Lincoln? Only one: Michigander.

[Update: Since there were some inquiries in the comments, I've appended the full list of words for which the OED gives Darwin as the first cited author. One of them turned out to be a false positive, so the list is down to 143.]

18 Comments

Mossy said,

Is there any truth to the assertion that Gary Wills makes in Lincoln at Gettysburg that "Up to the Civil War, the 'United States' was invariably a plural noun: 'The United States are a free government.' After Gettysburg, it became a singular: 'The United States is a free government.'" ??

[(myl) In a word, "no". There was a change, but it was more gradual. Wills is not the only one to assert this, however. Ben Zimmer wrote at some length about this issue here. ]

Mossy said,

Mike Keesey: The linked article says "He was also the first to write in English about the archaeopteryx, a fossil find that helped bolster his evolutionary theories. (The paleontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer is credited with introducing the Greek-derived term archaeopteryx first in German.)"

Nigel Greenwood said,

First of all, I'm greatly indebted to BZ for bringing up a lexicographical topic today. Purely by chance, there happened also to be a letter in today's Guardian (aka Grauniad) IT supplement pointing out that the OED can be accessed online by any holder of a UK public library ticket. This indeed turned out to be the case (at least in my enlightened borough, Haringey, as it is in most, but not all, London boroughs). I shall now be able to indulge my nwordiness (the W is silent) to my heart's content.

The first fruit of my new-found reference tool was to discover that, while Charles Darwin may have been the first to use the verb nutate in a botanical sense (in 1880), it was his grandfather Erasmus who first applied the noun nutation to botany — almost 100 years earlier, in the momentous year 1789.

Andrew said,

The linked article says that “since Lincoln's time, Michigan natives have embraced 'Michigander' as a self-effacing term.” My personal sense, as a most-of-my-life Michigan resident, is that this is the primary term used by a majority of people who call the state home, and that the principal alternative, 'Michiganian,' is less-used and more “marked” to most people. I believe 'Michigander' is used today without a self-effacing connotation, but just as one would say 'Iowan' or 'Oregonian,' without a second thought.

(And for what it's worth, Firefox's spell checker has just flagged 'Michiganian' but not 'Michigander.')

Jesse Tseng said,

Mike Keesey brings up a valid point, though, I think. Words like archaeopteryx and rodeo are hardly examples of Darwin as a "linguistic innovator". In fact, in those cases he deliberately chose not to innovate. I don't know how many of Benjamin Zimmer's list of 144 words fall into this category. Of course he still gets credit for introducing all of them to the English-reading audience, so high fives for Darwin! I just don't want Lincoln to get too depressed when he reads the column.

I don't think Darwin was aware of archaeopteryx, let alone coined the term. He was bothered by the prediction of his theory, that transitional forms would be found in the fossil record. Archaeopteryx was a transitional fossil, discovered two years after Origin was published, but, from everything I've read, Darwin was sadly, ironically unaware of this vindication his entire life.

This seems transparently contrary to your opinion — I'm inclined to believe the OED in this case, though the citation is not clear as which date we should believe, and the 1859 date is not believable, since the first A. fossils were discovered in 1860-1863. The online version of the 1866 edition of Origin of Species certainly does Archeopteryx, in any event, and so I think we can dismiss your view that "Darwin was sadly, ironically unaware of this vindication his entire life". ]

The wonderful Canadian outdoors gear company, Arc'teryx, takes its name from archaeopteryx, speaking of coined terms.

Nigel Greenwood said,

Re algarroba. I'm not convinced that Darwin was being such an innovator in using this word. From the quotation in the OED ("A few algarroba trees, a kind of mimosa") it sounds as if he simply hadn't made the (etymological) connection with the already well-established term carob.

David Marjanović said,

The linked article says "He was also the first to write in English about the archaeopteryx, a fossil find that helped bolster his evolutionary theories.

But there is no such thing as "the archaeopteryx". Archaeopteryx is a proper name (and the italics have been part of the correct spelling for many decades now).

(The paleontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer is credited with introducing the Greek-derived term archaeopteryx first in German.)"

No, von Meyer coined the name from Greek parts. He didn't do so "in German", even though his article was in German. Archaeopteryx isn't part of a language, it's an internationally fixed disembodied spelling!